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Post by jk on Feb 29, 2020 7:36:17 GMT -5
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Post by jk on Mar 1, 2020 18:40:35 GMT -5
I heard this piece this afternoon on the Detroit classical music station I was alerted to recently (thank you, that person!). The plaintive "Lullaby" from Khachaturian's ballet suite Gayane has been a favourite orchestral piece of mine since early childhood. Here, as in the radio broadcast, it's performed by members of the LSO under Stanley Black: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gayane_(ballet)
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Post by jk on Mar 3, 2020 18:41:50 GMT -5
This is for Silken , who I hope will drop in from time to time. S, I promise not to hijack your "Silken sings" topic again!! I have pangs of guilt about it to this day. I heard this Psalm setting by Cyrillus Kreek this morning on Dutch radio, in this version: Edit: I now see my good friend Deleted posted this same piece with the same dedicatee almost exactly a year ago. Great minds etc.
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Post by jk on Mar 6, 2020 12:23:45 GMT -5
I heard this jolly overture by Ambroise Thomas this morning on the wonderful US radio station I have been pointed at. Mignon, the opera it introduces, was first performed in 1866: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mignon
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Post by jk on Mar 12, 2020 5:37:02 GMT -5
This gem gives just a brief glimpse into aeijtzsche's broad musical interests and prodigious talents. I know this is a favourite of hers, William Byrd's six-part motet Tu es Petrus, here played by JH on multi-tracked electric mandolin (the two upper voices) and acoustic guitar (the lower four). I'm sure Mr Byrd would love it. In her own words: The great William Byrd composed this magnificent motet to the text: Tu es Petrus, et super hanc Petram aedificabo ecclesiam meam You are Peter, and on this rock I will build my Church It is a marvel of polyphonic writing and also creating the sensation of the text within the music. For example, when a voice part sings of the "Rock" it dives low, particularly in the basses, where the rock line is low and drawn out for many bars--quite literally the rock on which the structure of the motet rests. I've sadly lost the marriage of music and text by producing this instrumental version, 2 electric mandolins playing the top two parts and acoustic guitar playing the bottom four. It is otherwise a straightforward note-for-note translation from the score (with one small exception.) I hope you enjoy it--I do things other than Beach Boys videos! But they have vocal harmony in common!
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Post by Silken on Mar 12, 2020 12:53:34 GMT -5
S, I promise not to hijack your "Silken sings" topic again!! I have pangs of guilt about it to this day.
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Post by jk on Mar 12, 2020 13:36:45 GMT -5
S, I promise not to hijack your "Silken sings" topic again!! I have pangs of guilt about it to this day. Hello S. Well, if I can bring a smile to your face, you won't hear me complaining! But how about a musical post next time round? (There's no hurry on this, of course.)
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Post by jk on Mar 15, 2020 8:03:27 GMT -5
This is curious. Franz Lehár is best known as a composer of operettas, most notably The Merry Widow. Yet here he gives us a graphic depiction of wartime suffering in a song for tenor and orchestra, originally piano (scroll down to #5 for a brief excerpt, which was all I could find of the orchestral version): www.amazon.com/Lehar-Symphonic-Works-Klauspeter-Seibel/dp/B00E4AYLUWI looked around and discovered the following detailed description of “Fieber” (Fever): My second example [of a work incorporating a national anthem] is Franz Lehár’s lied Fieber from his cycle of five songs, published in 1915 as Aus eiserner Zeit. While the first four are simple songs with piano accompaniment, the fifth, entitled Fieber, is staged as a dramatic scene (see Figure 5). It depicts a wounded soldier’s time in a field hospital. He is in a feverish dream and imagines himself amongst his fighting comrades. To the words ‘den Kriegsmarsch, den wir alle sangen’ (‘the war march, that we all sang’), the Austrian Radetzky March sounds, in combination with the Hungarian Rákóczi March, in a minor key. In the soldier’s hallucinating state, the sounds of the various marches mix together. Then, eerily and sombrely, Lehár depicts his approaching death, which brings the work to an uneasy end. This composition, written in April 1915, is generally seen as linked to the suffering of Lehár’s brother Anton, a colonel in the Austro-Hungarian army. He was wounded twice during the first weeks of the war and taken to a hospital in Vienna, where he suffered for months, but eventually recovered. ‘My visits to him are some of the saddest memories of my life’, Lehár remarked in his journal in November 1919. Lehár, the son of a military chaplain, presented the tragic side of the war in a complex composition. Along with the piano piece, he also wrote a version for orchestra, which was performed for the first time on 12 April 1916. Scholars of Lehár’s music generally have great difficulty in knowing where to place this work amongst the composer’s successful operettas. [ Source]
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Post by jk on Mar 19, 2020 4:54:39 GMT -5
This was one of my last posts at PSF, maybe the very last. The harmonic progression beginning about 51 seconds in (and a couple of times later) is one of the most magical in all music. This was one of my first posts here: The only great composer to my knowledge who couldn't play the piano was the Frenchman Hector Berlioz--and goodness me it shows. This is from Berlioz's Mémoires (in translation--not by me, I should add): "I had mastered three majestic, incomparable instruments, the flageolet, the flute and the guitar. Who could fail to recognise in this judicious choice the impulse of nature which was driving me towards the most immense orchestral effects and music on the scale of Michelangelo! The flute, the guitar and the flageolet!… I have never had any other skills as an instrumentalist, though these seem to me respectable enough as it is. But I am not being fair to myself: I could also play the drum. "My father was against letting me start studying the piano, otherwise I would probably have become a formidable pianist, like countless others. He had absolutely no intention of making an artist of me, and was probably worried that the piano might establish too strong a hold on me and lead me deeper into music than he wished. "I have often regretted not being able to play the piano; this skill could be of great use to me in many circumstances. But when I think of the frightening number of trivia that are produced with such ease day-in day-out – disgraceful compositions that would be beyond the reach of their authors if they had to rely on pen and paper and were deprived of their musical kaleidoscope – I have to thank my lucky stars for having been obliged to learn to compose in silence and with complete freedom. This has preserved me from the tyranny of fingering patterns, which are so damaging for creative composition, and from the seduction of commonplaces to which composers are exposed most of the time." en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mémoires_(Berlioz)
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Post by jk on Mar 20, 2020 16:54:46 GMT -5
It was the use of music from The Planets (part of "Neptune" and a snippet from "Mars") in an episode, posted elsewhere on this forum, of Mr. Robot that gave me the idea of tackling each of the seven movements of Holst's orchestral suite chronologically, accompanied by a potted description off the top of my head (this will explain any errors). en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_PlanetsThe work opens with "Mars, the Bringer of War". Begun, I believe, before WWI broke out, it is prophetic of the mechanized warfare to come. The 5/4 rhythm batters its way inexorably through the movement, with a brief lull about halfway and a cry of pain towards the end. "Mars" has been used in a modified form by King Crimson in "The Devil's Triangle" from their second album In the Wake of Poseidon. The version of The Planets I'll be linking is by the BBC Symphony Orchestra under Sir Andrew Davis. A brief anecdote (while I'm on a roll): Davis and I actually attended the same grammar school, although he was my senior by two or three years. When I was fourteen I took him a piece of music I'd written--just some derivative fluff. He played through it with all the care and attention worthy of a masterpiece, and then played (and sang) a big chunk of a cantata he had been working on. And now he's a world-famous conductor. You should turn the volume up reasonably high to catch the hushed opening rhythm on the strings but you may find yourself turning it down later on!
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Post by jk on Mar 20, 2020 16:56:14 GMT -5
The second movement, "Venus, the Bringer of Peace", is the one that contrasts most with its predecessor in the suite. That rising horn figure, answered by cool flutes, ushers in a picture of serenity. Later a solo oboe rises to the occasion. After a gentle climax, a rippling celesta brings the movement to a close. Holst was a troubled man but nothing of it shows in these almost nine minutes of bliss.
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Post by jk on Mar 20, 2020 16:57:51 GMT -5
"Mercury, the Winged Messenger" is mercurial in both name and nature. This last-named is expressed musically in two ways:
First, the key furthest away from C is F#, positioned midway between one C and the C an octave above (or below). This interval is called the tritone and it can be made great use of in the hands of a capable composer, as here. (I could probably do better to describe it as a sophisticated use of bitonality.)
Second, the rhythm alternates between bars of 3/4 and 6/8; these are sometimes heard simultaneously.
The effect of these two devices makes "Mercury" feel as light as air. It's also the shortest of the seven movements--indeed, it's more like an interlude or perhaps a scherzo.
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Post by jk on Mar 20, 2020 16:59:30 GMT -5
"Jupiter, the Bringer of Jollity" (lovely word, that) is the one you're most likely to hear on the radio. It simply brims over with great tunes.
Understandably in this light, it is the most plundered movement of the seven. Manfred Mann's Earthband even took one of the tunes (first heard at 1:05) into the charts as "Joybringer". And Frank Zappa introduced his "Ritual Dance Of The Giant Pumpkin" on Absolutely Free with another (first heard at 1:46).
The big tune at 3:15 was given lyrics and sung as a patriotic hymn ("I Vow to Thee, My Country") during WWI. I can't remember whether Holst sanctioned this move but it's totally out of keeping with the carefree nature of "Jupiter". (Regrettably, the video makes mention of this misuse in the title.) My favourite passage is the swirling, almost psychedelic treatment of this very tune just before the coda.
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Post by jk on Mar 20, 2020 17:00:35 GMT -5
When I first heard "Saturn, the Bringer of Old Age" I was in my mid teens. More than half a century later, it is still one of my favourite Holst pieces. (The title is somewhat more telling now, of course.)
It begins with two alternating chords representing the inexorable march of the years. Later, we get one of Holst's "sad processions"--he was haunted by these all his life--in the brass at first. Four flutes introduce a new, more urgent element that builds until the bells clang out an alarm. Panic briefly ensues before acceptance takes over and the movement ends in serene, widely spaced chords underpinned by low notes on the organ pedals.
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Post by jk on Mar 20, 2020 17:01:52 GMT -5
"Uranus, the Magician" has much in common with Dukas' Sorceror's Apprentice, except that this sorceror is in control from the get-go. The opening four-note incantation on the brass recurs throughout the movement, which builds until a shattering glissando on the organ transports us to a serene realm devoid of all hocus-pocus.
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Post by jk on Mar 20, 2020 17:05:36 GMT -5
"Neptune, the Mystic" is one of the quietest pieces ever written. (I don't believe it rises above mezzo-piano.) I remember the LP liner notes going on to describe this low volume as "the hush of concentration" rather than of despair or anything negative. The high G (here at 3:51) takes a while to impress itself on the senses. It is sung by female voices located in a room offstage. Dividing into six (?) parts, they carry the work to its conclusion. To sneakily quote an old Smiley post of mine, the door of the room closes slowly on the female choir with the final bar "repeated until the sound is lost in the distance". PS: Anyone bold enough to investigate the full score can find it here. I remember gawping at its graphic qualities as a young child. Before then I'd heard The Planets only once on the radio, at night, drifting up the stairs to my bedroom where it conjured up multi-coloured visions of outer space.
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Post by jk on Mar 20, 2020 17:09:41 GMT -5
EGDON HEATH The CD that I've used to illustrate each planet concludes with my favourite among Holst's compositions, the orchestral miniature Egdon Heath. Written in 1927, the composer considered it his most perfectly realized work. (Not being a part of the series, I took the liberty of looking some things up at this point!) The version linked here (recorded in 1961 by the London Philharmonic Orchestra under Sir Adrian Boult) is the one I've always known and loved. The YouTube blurb is pretty well complete in itself, with the wiki page providing some additional background information: "A place perfectly accordant with man's nature--neither ghastly, hateful nor ugly; neither commonplace, unmeaning nor tame; but like man, slighted and enduring; and withal singularly colossal and mysterious in its swarthy monotony." This quotation from Thomas Hardy's 1878 novel The Return of the Native appears on the score of Gustav Holst's tone poem Egdon Heath, dedicated to Hardy (who, at age 87, had one more year of life remaining), and long regarded by the composer as his finest work. It was commissioned by the New York Symphony Orchestra, which premiered it under the direction of Walter Damrosch at New York's Mecca Auditorium on 12 February 1928. The next day Holst led the City of Birmingham Symphony in the British premiere at Cheltenham, where the first major festival of Holst's music had taken place the previous year. Those initial performances went well, but another in London a few days later was greeted poorly by a noisy and unreceptive audience. This seems to have made Holst a bit anxious about the work, and may have led to his desire that the above Hardy quotation should always appear in any explanatory programme notes. In her book on her father's music, Holst's daughter Imogen evokes the Hardy quotation in referring to the "mysterious monotony" of the tone poem, which begins with a sombre melody heard first in the double basses, then taken up by the rest of the strings. A nostalgic theme in the brass and woodwinds, and a scurrying theme in the strings and oboe, work their way into the texture as well, leading to moody, twilit music and what has been described as a "strange, ghostly dance". This dark, evocative work finishes the same way it started: quietly, and somewhat mysteriously. Please give the volume knob a good crank, otherwise you'll miss the opening double basses: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Egdon_HeathGustav Holst (21 September 1874--25 May 1934)
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Post by jk on Mar 25, 2020 8:01:56 GMT -5
I wonder if someone, somewhere, appreciated those last eight posts? We shall never know! Moving on... I heard a work on the radio by the Swedish composer Kurt Atterberg (who?), couldn't identify it and then discovered this gem of a double concerto. Seems Atterberg was quite a technical gent, looking at his wiki page. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kurt_Atterberg
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Post by jk on Apr 2, 2020 4:46:24 GMT -5
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Post by jk on Apr 4, 2020 3:39:18 GMT -5
There's this cool religious music programme on Dutch radio every Saturday morning. Today they ended with this beauty by Arvo Pärt. The organ at the close of The Beatitudes almost inevitably brings to mind the last section of Pink Floyd's "Cirrus Minor". This rendition (the one I heard this morning) is by the same performers who premiered the work in 1990:
www.arvopart.ee/en/arvo-part/work/512/
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Post by jk on Apr 11, 2020 5:54:51 GMT -5
Back in the mid '60s I bought this album on the Czech Supraphon label (see image) for side one, which paired Debussy's Prélude à l'après-midi d'un faune with Ravel's second Daphnis et Chloé ballet suite. On the flip was something called Ondráš by someone called Hurník. I assumed it was just filler--or giving some loser a chance--until I gave it a spin. After that, Ondráš got as many plays as the Debussy and Ravel pieces. This incredibly colourful ballet music, performed here by the Czech Philharmonic under Karel Ančerl, deserves a much wider audience and thanks to YouTube (and a bit of promotion, such as here) it looks like it may get it. Regrettably, YT breaks it down into its six parts but don't be discouraged--these are all short and all well worth hearing. I'll link them in pairs in the next three posts. www.musicbase.cz/composers/323-hurnik-ilja/
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Post by jk on Apr 11, 2020 5:56:23 GMT -5
1. Dance With Whoops:
2. Maiden's Wedding Dance:
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Post by jk on Apr 11, 2020 5:57:14 GMT -5
3. Brigand Dance:
4. Oracular Dance:
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Post by jk on Apr 11, 2020 5:58:11 GMT -5
5. Dance At the Sviadnov Pub:
6. Ondráš's Death:
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Post by jk on Apr 21, 2020 4:47:07 GMT -5
Although I'm following the lively and throught-provoking discussion in the Covid-19 topic, that's no reason for me to shirk my duties in the non-BB musical corner of the forum. Music's healing properties have always been important but no more important than now. Translation, a choral work by Ēriks Ešenvalds, a Latvian composer hitherto unknown to me, was one of three musical items in the weekly BBC Radio 3 feature "Sounds of the Earth", last Sunday devoted to the sounds of a dawn chorus recorded in the UK. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ēriks_Ešenvalds
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